


The First Runner

by 1907_hp



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner, The Scorch Trials
Genre: Basically The Maze Runner from the girl's POV, Doctor Who References, F/F, Group B, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Pre-The Maze Runner, Pre-The Scorch Trials, The Glade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:55:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8684881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1907_hp/pseuds/1907_hp
Summary: "Someone had to have spent a whole month in the Glade alone. That was Alby." - Newt~~~What about Group B? Who was the first female Glader?  How did she survive all that time on her own?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work doesn't strictly follow James Dashner's series. This started with the idea of how a large group of girls would get along and survive in the same, life-or-death situation as in The Maze Runner. I wrote this before reading The Scorch Trials, so it's canon divergent in that I kind of disregard that Harriet and Sonya are the leaders of Group B. These characters are completely my own. That being said, I hope you like it! Now let's get on with the show.

She began her new life lying down, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air. The first thing she became aware of was the hard metal floor on which she had previously been sleeping. Pulling herself upright, her eyes peered into the darkness, trying to get a sense of where she was.

The second thing she became aware of was the sounds; metal grating against metal, whirling gears, and deafening clangs and thumps echoed from the darkness around her, as if she were at the heart of an ancient steel factory.

The last thing she became aware of was the smell. The stench of livestock and manure permeated her senses, making her extremely nauseous. The putrid smell, combined with the jolting movement of the floor beneath her, had her fearing that she was going to be sick.

"Hold on," she thought, clutching her stomach, "when's the last time I ate? Better question: where am I?" She hugged her knees close to her chest as a sudden sense of fear washed over her. "How did I get here? What's happening?"

Desperate to find answers, she restrained her fear and began feeling her way around the metal floor, hoping to find some object that could help her in anyway. Although she did stumble into what she thought were some boxes and crates, the lack of any light whatsoever made it impossible to tell what other things lay inside the room with her.

She shuffled backwards until she hit a wall, which was humming and lurching just like the floor. She pressed her hand against the cool metal and felt holes. A cold chill ran down her back with the realization that the entire room was moving, and that, perhaps, it wasn't even a room at all - it was more like an old mine shaft. A cage.

At this thought, her fear levels skyrocketed from freaked out into a full blown panic attack. Somebody help me! She screamed until her voice was raw and she was out of breath, but nobody came. She sobbed silently as the metal elevator slowly continued its journey into darkness.

Since any further examination of her physical surroundings were useless in the darkness, she instead turned her search for answers inward, hoping that maybe some memory of how she got here would surface. She tried to think, what is the last thing she remembered? Her brain supplied her with images of the world and how it worked. She could remember doing things, certain events like walking a dog, riding a Ferris wheel, wishing a friend a “Happy Birthday”. But when she tried to focus on that friend's name or face, it remained blurry and unclear. She couldn't remember a single person, a friend, a boyfriend, or even her parents or her siblings. She didn't even know if she had a family at all. A heavy weight settled in her chest as it suddenly dawned on her; she didn't even know her own name.

Beyond the basic understandings of the world, she had no recollection of what she was doing before she woke up in this cage. Had she been kidnapped? Was she missing? Was her family looking for her? Was anyone looking for her? All these useless thoughts swirled around in her head, and she decided it'd be best not to dwell over them, lest she risk sending herself into another panic attack.

She closed her eyes and waited (for what, she had no idea), as the metal prison carried her slowly upwards, the sound of her heartbeat the only comfort in the darkness. "I'm alive. I'm alive. That's all the matters. I'm gonna find my family. It's gonna be okay."

What felt like hours or maybe minutes crawled by until The Cage finally came to a screeching halt. Her eyes snapped open, fear and anticipation bubbling up inside her. She watched as the ceiling of The Cage split in two and bright white light came piercing through the darkness, blinding her. Although she had been so desperate to escape the confines of The Cage, after spending so long in the dark, the light was painful and unwelcome to her eyes. So for a few more painstaking minutes, she sat blinking into the stabbing light until her eyes could adjust to the sudden intrusion.

Once she could finally see, she looked around at the many crates and containers of The Cage, curious to find out what exactly she had at her disposal. Hopefully some food, her mind supplied as her stomach rumbled noisily. "I haven't eaten since, well... I can't remember. Since the last time I've eaten, I suppose."

"Yes, thank you Captain Obvious" the more logical part of her brain cut in. "Absolutely brilliant observation."

After mentally arguing with herself, she gathered the strength to slowly unravel from her stiff, cramped position against the wall, and, with support from a nearby box, heaved until she was standing upright in the center of The Cage.

Suddenly, as the bright light from outside hit her face and a crisp breeze wound its way through the opening, the combined curiosity, fear and anticipation to leave the darkness and discover the world beyond it was, surprisingly, greater than her desire for food at the moment.

Deciding that she would search the containers later, she began looking for a way to climb out of The Cage, and to her dismay, found that the ceiling was way too high for her to reach, and that there was nothing she could grab onto to pull herself out.

"Well shit." She thought. "How the hell am I going to get out?"

"Maybe if you stopped talking to yourself and actually used your head, you could think of something." her logical side pointed out, again.

"Hey, did I ask you?" She thought defensively.

"Do you want to be trapped here forever?!"

"Fair point."

"Hello?" The sound was ripped from her throat. It sounded rough and ragged in her ears from all the screaming she had done before. She winced. It didn't even sound like her voice. She called a few more times into the open air, waiting, perhaps for someone to wildly appear at the edge of The Cage, someone with a rope, someone who could help her; Someone who had answers. Sadly, part of her knew that if anyone was here to help her, they would have showed up by now. Part of her still hoped that this was all a dream, and that she would wake up in her bed, with her family, and everything would be right again.

Realizing that no one was going to come to her rescue, she resolutely decided that she would just have to save herself.

Spotting a metal barrel in the corner of The Cage, an idea came to her, and after scooting a small box in front of it as a makeshift step stool, she carefully climbed on top of the barrel and stood up. Her head just barely met the top of the opening, but it was enough for her to use her arms as leverage and pull herself out. With a grunt, she jumped up and tumbled over the side. Landing on her back, she opened her eyes, and for the first time since she woke up, she felt a sense of wonder.

Colors. Bright, prominent colors were the first thing she saw. Such a wonderful juxtapose from the endless, dull, steely gray of The Cage. There were so many new colors that it was hard taking them all in at once.

The sky was a strikingly clear blue, dotted here and there with white, fluffy clouds. The simple sight almost brought tears to her eyes. After so much confined darkness, vast open sky was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

The next color was green; Green grass and green trees and green vines filled her vision until she was practically swimming in it. She saw trees taller than houses with massive trunks, all covered in mossy vines. To her right was a small forest, so dense that she couldn't even see past the first line of trees. She felt the grass beneath her hands, ripped it from the earth in order to better see it. It was warm and soft to the touch. After lying on cold, hard metal for so long, she felt the sudden urge to roll around in the grass like a little kid.

Her roaming eyes then fell on brown- soil, earth, a farm. Suddenly, the smell of livestock made sense. There were cattle grazing in the fields, black and white cows eating the green grass, red and orange chickens scattered amongst the rich, brown soil, which was just waiting to be plowed and planted.

To her left was a swampy marsh, a big combination of blues and greens and browns. She wondered if she walked up to the edge, if she would see fish swimming within, gold and blue and pink and purple.

All of it, all the colors - the trees, the farm, the swamp, the forest - it was all one big, giant Everglade.

Her head kept turning in circles; it was breath-taking.

But what she saw beyond the Everglade stole her breath in a bad way, like when all the air is sucked from your lungs and you're trying not to choke: Four steely gray walls, hundreds-of-feet high encompassed the Everglade on all sides, trapping her within. Each wall had a crack down the middle, as if the pieces were meant to fit together. Vines grew up the sides of each massive wall, but didn’t quite seem to reach the top. The stone looked ancient, impossible.

She starred numbly at the walls, thinking "Oh God, please no, not again. I don't want to be trapped here. Please, not again."

Imagine being trapped in an incredibly small cage for hours, in complete darkness, with no way out, only to escape that cage, and just when you think you're free, you're met with an infinitely bigger one- to realize that you are still trapped, that you never really were free at all. Imagine having that sense of liberating relief ripped from your hands and discovering that everything was a trick. She had felt hope, hope that she could be free. They gave her hope, and then they took it away. That was enough to make anyone dangerous.

It was all so overwhelming, too many thoughts and feelings rising like a tidal wave inside her. She felt herself stumble back at the weight of it. Before she was fully aware of what she was doing, her feet carried her back into The Cage, back into the cold darkness. She hit the ground hard and felt herself crumbling. She felt herself breaking down.

Part of her was pleading, "It’s too much! Why me? Why am I here? Why is this happening? I just want to go home. I just want to remember. I am so alone."

Part of her was desperately trying to keep from falling apart. "You're alive. It's okay. That's all that matters. You're gonna get out of here. It's gonna be okay."

Minutes passed, and eventually her breathing evened out and she calmed down enough to think clearly and logically so that she could form some sort of a plan. Her eyes turned to the unopened crates that were sent up with her. "They must be here for a reason," she thought. "There must be something in there that can help me escape. Maybe a grappling hook to get me over that wall, or, better yet, a jet pack."

Approaching the biggest box, she carefully opened the crate lid and looked inside. The lid fell away to reveal: tools. Many, many, tools. At first glance, she saw a shovel, an ax, a rake, a hoe, a pocket knife, and even more tools that she couldn't even name. In another box, she found seeds and other forms of food, and an empty flask. In another she found clothes and running shoes, an empty backpack and a tarp.

Her mind cataloged all these new items, and has she ripped into one of her precious few granola bars, she thought about what she was supposed do with all of them. Her mind suddenly flashed to the farm and all the untouched soil. She looked at her wide arrange of tools and packages of seeds. Her chewing slowly came to a stop as she realized what they wanted her to do.

She crawled back out of The Cage and looked out over the huge Everglade.

"I'll have to think of something different to call it", she thought absently. "'The Everglade' is too much of a mouth full."

She was not going to die here. She didn't know who put her here, or why they thought it'd be a funny idea to trap a girl inside this... Glade and give her the tools to survive and see how long she could make it. But she was not going to give them that satisfaction of watching her slowly die. She was going to prove them wrong. Girls don't need anyone to save them, they can save themselves.

First, she was going to have to build a shelter, a fire, and find a clean source of water. She would have to plow the farm soil and grow food from there. She could get milk and meat from the livestock. She could chop down trees for wood and use vines as rope to build shelter. She was going to survive. And once she did that, she was going to find a way to escape. She was going to see her family again.

She saw all of her plans playing out inside her head. She could do this. She had to do this.

With a renewed sense of purpose and determination, she grabbed the ax from the pile of tools and swung it onto her shoulder. "Okay." She thought. "We’ve got work to do."

 

~~~  
One month later  
~~~

She was tying together the ladder for the Lookout when she heard it, a muted, metal groaning. She froze. She knew that sound. She still had nightmares about that sound. It can't be...

She looked up from her workshop spot in the clearing of the trees. (It was easier to lug newly-felled trees to the stump in the center of the clearing for chopping.) She peered past her tarp-fashioned hammock tied between two trees at the edge of the Forest, past the Farm where the corn stalks were coming in nicely, past the small Hut for storing food, past the new tree house/Lookout Post at the center of the Glade, all the way back to The Cage- the thing which she aptly avoided. It hadn't moved since she dragged all of her mysteriously supplied crates of tools out into the open. For an entire month, it's just been sitting there, hollow, empty. Now, the only thing it supplies are bad memories. Since then, she's got to work colonizing The Glade (if you consider one person a "colony").

"I've done a pretty good job so far, if I do say so myself." her prideful part thinks happily.

She catches fish from the swamp, collects eggs from the chickens, receives milk from the cows, and grows the rest of her food from the seeds, which she all stores in the Storage Hut for later. She can cook anything over a fire, and there's a clean source of water deep in the Forest that took her ages find. All this, she does during the day while simultaneously building huts and houses for shelter. She remains busy and sore from chopping wood, the repetition of swinging the ax down causing bloody blisters to form all over her hands. It's back-breaking work, and she's pretty sure she smells as bad as the livestock by now, but she tries to take showers when she can, using a bucket filled with water from the Forest. She stays away from the ominous walls during the day and sleeps deeply at night, (as long as the sounds beyond the ancient walls don't wake her and the nightmares don't come back to haunt her).

She doesn't think much about the situation she's in or all the unanswered questions she has. It's absolutely useless, because the thinking gets her nowhere and only proves to make her miserable and angry. Sometimes she can't help herself, and she'll find herself being drawn to the Eastern wall of The Glade, where 30 rough lines have been carved with a knife, where her name is scratched like a brand: Rose

Her name came to her in her sleep, in one of her nightmares. She thought she remembered seeing a person, a young boy, no more than 12 years old. She felt like she knew the boy, but before she could ask him any questions, he began yelling, "Rose! Rose!" Over and over, like he was in pain, like he was afraid. Desperate to help him, she reached out, but his image disappeared like smoke, and she woke up in a cold sweat. Somehow she knew, that was her name. Rose.

She likes to pretend that the boy was her brother, but she really had no idea who he was, no proof that he was even real. She wanted to think it was a memory, but it was probably just a bad dream.

She snapped herself out of these depressing thoughts and turned her focus back to The Cage.

"It's odd", she thinks. "That thing hasn't moved since it brought me up one month ago. Exactly one month ago..." 

Reluctantly, she drops the wood slats for the ladder and, with no small amount of trepidation, makes her way over to The Cage.

"I have a very bad feeling about this." she worries, as if the thought alone will make the elevator stop altogether, and things would go back to the way they were. But then again, a selfish part of her thinks... "What if.. what if it's someone else? What if they're sending up another person?"

A cold feeling settles in her stomach; she doesn't know what to do about it. Part of her is desperate to see another human being, desperate to have someone else to touch, to hug, to talk to, instead of having all these stupid conversations in her own head, trying and most likely failing to hold on to some semblance of sanity in this hell hole. Another part of her never wants to subject another human being to this form of suffering.

She wraps her arms around herself in a makeshift hug, waiting for the agonizingly slow ascent of The Cage to reveal whether or not her sense of loneliness with stick around for the long run. She counts what is maybe half an hour later when The Cage finally comes to a stop, and the metal doors slide open. It sends chills down her spine. "I remember this." she thinks.

At first, there's nothing. And the part of her that is desperate for human contact deflates in shame and disappointment. Then, a sound. Not metal. Human. The sound of breathing, more specifically... sniffling? She peers over the side of The Cage, into the ground, and lets out the breath she didn't know she was holding. There, at the bottom of The Cage, curled up in the corner in a very similar way that she had been, she sees her: a small, skinny girl with short, dirty blonde hair. The girl has her head down, so Rose can't see her face clearly. Staring at this girl's appearance and all of the individual features has Rose thinking, for the first time ever since she woke up, "I wonder what I look like?"

She knows from all the annoying instances of chopping wood when her hair falls in her face that she had long, wavy brown hair. And she supposes that she has a strong build, has to after all the gritty, laborious work she does. But besides that, she has no idea what she looks like.

"It's not like whoever sent me here were kind enough to give me a mirror", she thought sourly. The sudden lack of crying pulled her from her thoughts. "Right. New girl. I guess I better go introduce myself." Like a person trying not to spook a wounded animal, she said in what she hoped was her best non-threatening-sounding voice, "Hey..."

"'Hey'? Are you serious? You're first contact with an actual human being since you first woke up here and you decide to go with "hey"?! Plus, you sound like a dying animal."

It was true. After a month of non-use, her voice sounded like a garbled mess.

"Would you shut up! You're not helping."

After hearing no response from the girl, she decides to clear her throat and try again louder. "HEY!"

At this, the girl's head snaps up, eyes wide like an owl, and even from here she could tell they were red-rimmed and blood-shot. So definitely crying. Now that she had this girl's attention, she really wasn't sure what else to say. "I guess, after a month of being completely isolated from the world, driven by the sole need to survive, and no one to talk to but your own thoughts, your conversational and social skills were pretty much non-existent" she half laughed.

In an attempt to make a connection to this complete stranger (and to keep from blatantly having to call this girl "hey you!"), she decided to ask, “What’s your name?"

To her surprise, she hears a feeble voice echo from within The Cage. "I...I don't know."

"She doesn't know her own name?" She thinks. "But that... sounds exactly like what happened to me..." It dawns on her slowly. "Oh my God."

Trying to ignore the fact that her fears have just been confirmed about this horrible place and the people who put her here, she instead focuses on trying to console this girl and get her out of The Cage. "...It's okay. It should come back to you in a few days."

"What?" The confusion is obvious in this girl's voice, but Rose doesn't know what else to give her besides the truth.

"Come on, let's get you out of here." She says, extending a hand. She can tell from the weary look this girl gives her that this isn't going to be easy. At least she can understand where this girl is coming from. If, when The Cage had first opened up for her, she found a complete stranger waiting for her, she wouldn't have immediately trusted them either. So this new girl has good reason to be suspicious of Rose. But if they were going to get anywhere, they had to start communicating.

"It's okay, I don't bite. Just climb up here." She says, gesturing to the same barrel of tools and other objects she had first used to climb out of The Cage. "My name's Rose. It's nice to meet you." she says, extending her hand again. The girl just stares at her hand as if she'll catch the Plague if she touches it.

"Where am I? What's happening? Why don't I remember anything?"

A huge wave of sympathy rises up inside Rose, and she suddenly remembers all the fear and desperation she felt weeks ago.

Suddenly, all she wants to do is protect this small, crying girl. "It's gonna be okay. I promise. You wanna know where you are? Let me show you." Her hand extends out again, still, patience, waiting, accepting. The girl stares at it, then into Rose's eyes. Whatever she sees in there, Rose supposes it was something good, because she finally crawls out from the corner of the dark Cage and cautiously takes her hand.

Rose smiles. "Welcome to the Glade."

The girl blinks around at the swampy marsh land that Rose has come to know as home. "What is this place?" she asks in fear and wonder.

"...I don't know." Rose confesses.

"What do you mean you don't know?" The girl turns on her with terrified eyes.

Not wanting to overwhelm her, Rose answers "...Why don't I just show you?"

She leads the girl from The Cage to the Eastern wall, the whole way trying to explain to her what she knows.

"About a month ago, I came out of that hole, same as you." She points back to The Cage. "Only difference is that there was no one here to greet me. I was alone. No memories, no name, no idea how I got here, and no one to tell me up from down. I had to figure things out on my own. I had to survive by myself."

Passing by her strung-up hammock and campfire, the girl takes a second to take all this new information in.

"Eventually, my name came back to me in my sleep. Took a few days. I think the same thing should happen to you, if my hunch is right- which I hope it's not. If it is, then that means, in another month, another one of us is gonna get sent up here. Whoever's doing this, it must be some sick, wicked game they're playing, trapping girls in here. Seeing how long we can survive."

They pass the Farm and come to a stop in front of the Eastern Wall.

"Well I'm gonna prove them wrong. I'm not gonna die in here. And neither are you. You and me, we're a team now. We've gotta work together if we wanna survive. Look, I know you've only just met me, and you're probably pretty freaked out and scared right now. But listen, I promise, I'm gonna get you out of here. I'm gonna get you back to wherever you came from, just like I'm getting back to my family. So, what do you say?"

She raises her pocket-knife, handle out, towards the girl and gestures to the wall, where 30 tally marks and the name "Rose" stand out sharp against the stone. She looks into this girl's eyes, hope blooming in her chest. She hasn't forgotten her mission, but now that mission includes getting this girl to safety too. And any other girls that come along. "I'm going to put an end to all this, even if it takes years. I've got all the time in the world." she thinks.

"Are you with me?"

 

~~~  
3 years later  
~~~

"Oi! Somebody's gotta go pull the newbie out of The Cage!"

Clamoring shouts fill the air.

"Oh oh oh! I love this part!"

"Is it that time of the month already?"

"I'll do it!" A skinny girl with dirty blonde hair races to the center of The Glade.

"But you always get to do it, Amy", one of the girls whines.

"That's cause I'm older than you, stick" she quips back.

"Hey! Just cause you've been here longer than us doesn't mean you're actually old-"

"Well I'm still second-in-command, so that means I handle the supplies." She retorts, cutting the other girl off.

"I'll give you something else to handle..." she mumbles under her breath.

"Quiet! All of you! Stand back; give Amelia some room, will you?" Rose shouts in a commanding voice.

"I wonder what she looks like?"

More excited voices chatter back and forth.

"I hope she has red hair, like Emily. Red hair is so pretty. We don't have enough red-heads in here, do we?" a girl says almost mournfully.

"Oh just admit it, Jane. You have a thing for Emily." Her friend grins.

"Do not!" she says indignantly.

"Do too! Jane's got a crush!" she sing-songs.

"Would you two sticks shut up! We can discuss Jane's weird hair-color fetish later." Or hopefully not at all, Rose prays inwardly.

"... Uh, Rose? You might wanna come see this" Amy calls. 

This can't be good. "What? What is it?"

The group of forty-something girls all crowd around The Cage, where Amelia has jumped down to pull out the new stick. Looking up in shock at all her fellow Gladers, Amy answers their questioning stares by replying, "...It's a boy."

Scribbled on a note clutched in the sleeping boys hands are the words:

He's the last one. Ever.


End file.
